NFL and MLB May Stop Airing Game Broadcasts if Aereo Prevails

Forget the major broadcasters, Aereo may now be up against sports fans everywhere after the National Football League and Major League Baseball warned if the subscription streaming service wins its Supreme Court case, they might end free game broadcasts.

Major League Baseball and the National Football League filed an amicus brief last week, adding their names to the growing list of broadcasters and organizations looking to stop the controversial streaming media company that allows subscribers to record over the air broadcast signals without paying licensing fees.

According to Variety, the leagues said in their brief, “If copyright holders lose their exclusive retransmission licensing rights and the substantial benefits derived from those rights when they place programming on broadcast stations, those stations will become less attractive mediums for distributing copyrighted content. The option for copyright holders will be to move that content to paid cable networks (such as ESPN and TNT) where Aereo-like services cannot hijack and exploit their programming without authorization.”